The Gallbladder: Its Coming Out!

The blog updates have not been happening on the regular intervals as I have initially intended. What else has not happened? The hubby and I didn’t keep up with the P90X. Between the two of us we were sick for about a month and a half and then life got in the way. Let’s face it, we are truly our biggest obstacles that stand in our way of accomplishing our goals.

I have all the excuses from work being hectic, which means getting home very late. As much as I wanted to I could not get myself to roll out my warm bed in the mornings to actually work out since I seemed to be drawn to the couch as soon as I arrive home. 

When I suddenly got motivated to actually start exercising again (ok and eating right again). I got sick. Not a cold or a flu type of illness. I felt like I had been kicked by a mule in my stomach. I was in excruciating amount of pain for days. The first thought I had was there being an issue with my Lap band.  But when I called to make an appointment I was told that I didn’t have the symptoms for a band slip so to see my primary doctor. Since I was not experiencing nausea or vomiting it couldn’t be a slippage.

The doctor I ended up seeing was at the urgent care for my primary’s office. Due to location and my pain and my urine test coming back with blood, protein and liver enzimes I was given a referral to have an abdominal ultra sound. I the ultrasound a few days later and the pain was still off and on. I didn’t hear back from the doctor’s office so I just assumed a very bad bout of the flu. Not the case. They had called; I just didn’t get the message.

About two weeks ago called the doctor’s office back; they gave me a referral to a gastroenterologist and was told to make the appointment soon since I appeared to have gallstones. When I called to make the appointment they wanted to see me the same day, but due to my commute to work I could not make a same day appointment, so I went in the next day. Which was a Wednesday; I had a scope done two days later (Yes that would be a Friday). Oh let’s not forget that at the end of the Wednesday appointment the doctor advised me to contact my surgical group that did my band and set up gallbladder surgery the next week.

Just imagine how much my head was spinning after my Wednesday appointment I called the surgical group and was given a tentative consult appointment with a surgeon on the following Tuesday. Yes the office who said there was no need for me to come in due to a band slip, I still had to see because of gallbladder issues.  I had no idea what to expect from the surgery so like most of people in our generation, I Googled it.

Great so I could be out 3 days or up to a few weeks. Nice. And yet it’s not the surgery that had me edgy, it was taking time off of work and the potential of having to say overnight at the same hospital that I had my band surgery at. Not the best experience I have ever had at a hospital, surgical team was great, after care not so much.

But I am jumping ahead.

After my scope I was advised to still have my gallbladder removed and that I had possible band slippage. Really? After all this I still might have a band slip? But I didn’t have the symptoms remember, no nausea or vomiting. Well those are symptoms of gallbladder issues too and yet I needed surgery to have it removed. I called the office where I had my tentative Tuesday appointment with and told them the results of the scope over the phone. I was put on a hold then informed I needed to be seen that day. Now mind you I can’t drive for 12 hours since I just had a scope done. My two older daughters swapped taking me to appointments. One got up at the crack of dawn to drive me two hours up to an appointment and then the other took me to my other appointment (after her own dilemma of having her car die on her) so fun day all around right?

This is still Friday afternoon and I see the surgeon who will be taking my gallbladder out. He looks at the scope results and gives me a referral for an upper GI. I ask him if he wanted me to keep my Tuesday appointment. No, he wants me to come back Monday. It’s late Friday afternoon, yet somehow I was able to make an appointment for Monday morning for an upper GI.

Nothing like spending the whole weekend worried about not just going into surgery again but the impact it would have on work if I was gone suddenly for multiple weeks. Yes that is what stressed me out, not the surgery. Like I have stated before the surgical group is great. Honestly gallbladder surgery is pretty common (or so I found out).  To add to the stress my husband had been on travel weeks and was not due back until midweek.

It did cross my mind on the “what if” of the possible band slip and depending on how severe it was. What would I do if I had to have it removed? Simple I would have had the gastric sleeve surgery. I would not have hesitated. Granted feeling this was may have been prompted by the fact I have stopped losing weight and I found out I had gained 10 pounds in a week.

I had my small pity party. But I got over myself; the weight gain was true water weight. I had not taken certain medication in a few weeks that actually kept that under control.  I have since started to take it again and down 10 pounds.

Getting the upper GI was pretty uneventful. Ok have to admit seeing the images were pretty cool. If I do have a slip it is very minor. Phew. One less thing I have to worry about. Unfortunately the gallbladder is still coming out.

Thursday May 23^rd I will be having the outpatient procedure of having my gallbladder removed. In retrospect if I had known the percentage of band patients that have their gallbladder removed I would have opted to have it removed when I got my band. The statistics are higher with gastric bypass patience so I just assumed they were the ones who had most of the not so fun after effects of surgery. Yay me for proving that wrong.

There are so many factors that contribute to people getting gallstones, take your pick I fall under a few such as:

• Being female
• Obesity
• Losing a large amount of weight
• Pregnancy
• Pre-diabetic
• Vitamin D deficient
• Native American heritage (this one surprised me)

This was just another event to put things in perspective. I had this surgery to take control of my health. I did well for a while then I slipped. No longer having the 5ks to motivate me on a regular basis I lost sight of any further health goals.  Some people don’t need to set goals to keep themselves on track. I am beginning to understand that I am not that type of person. I need to those goals to provide myself the checks and balance my health needs.

Here’s hoping for a quick recovery so I can get my health back on track.